国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

area would be capable, in case of a considerable increase in the population and a corresponding
development of the canal system, without a thorough expert study of the various factors concerned.
It should, however, be noted that the amount of flood water brought down by the Muz-art-daryā
and allowed to pass unused over its alluvial fan must be very great. The flood was said to arrive
about the last week in May—considerably earlier than the corresponding period in the case of the
Khotan rivers—and to spread itself over the whole of the river-bed during June and July. This
bed, where we crossed it on our way to Dō-shamba-bāzār, was about a mile wide ; but at the time
it held only a negligible flow of water, in a channel about 10 feet wide and 2 to 3 inches deep.
After the end of May the river was said to become unfordable, and ferry-boats indispensable.
I received the impression that, provided increasing pressure of population were to furnish the
impetus, and conditions of administration favourable to peaceful development prevailed, the
available resources for irrigation would permit of the cultivated area, in any case to the south-west
of the river, being extended once more to include the ancient sites I visited in that direction.

We started from Dō-shamba-bāzār, ' of Toksu ', on the morning of April 21st, by the track Small
said to be usually followed by caravans destined for Khotan. Having first crossed a belt of marshy ruined
steppe, which separates the Toksu tract from that of Yangi-ābād, we continued along the eastern enclosures
edge of the latter to the southern end of continuous cultivation. Then, having picked up a local to SW. of
guide in the person of Azīz ' Palwān ', a ' Tatirchi ' or searcher for antiques, we followed the Toksu.
Khotan route to outlying patches of cultivation near Tāhir Hāji's ' Langar ' (Map No. 17. B. 2).
Proceeding thence for about four miles across a steppe studded with tamarisk-cones, we reached
Kalmak-shahr, the first ruin reported. It proved to be that of a small circumvallation, built of
stamped clay and about a hundred feet across. Its enclosing wall, standing to a height of 14 feet,
showed a thickness varying from 13 to 30 feet at the base. The whole of the interior was filled with
soft decomposed clay and revealed no trace of structural or other remains affording an indication
of date. The distance separating us from our camp, which, owing to mistaken advice, had been sent
to the village tract of Shahīdlar, away to the north-west, prevented our visiting two similar small
' Sipils ' or circumvallations, which Azīz Palwān referred to as Ziāratlik and Ot-ketkan-shahr and
described as situated close together to the southward. The interior of these also was said to be
without structural remains.

From Kalmak-shahr we followed the Khotan track south-westwards to Dāsh-tüghemen, where Outlying
a mill is worked by a small stream draining a marsh farther north, which evidently receives the cultivation
terminal discharge from the Yulduz-bāgh canals. Not far from it we came upon neglected fields of Yulduz-
belonging to Kūzlek, the southernmost farm of the Yulduz-bāgh canton ; and some 300 yards to bāgh.
the west of its last trees we found the badly decayed clay ramparts of an old fortified post known
as Ak-tiken-shahr, and measuring about 90 yards square. Here, too, no structural remains were
traceable in the soft dust filling the interior. Turning northwards we passed through straggling
patches of new cultivation, alternating with stretches of unreclaimed scrubby steppe, and finally
reached our camp near the southern edge of Shahīdlar in the dark, after a total march of
27 miles.

On the following morning I left our camp where it stood and proceeded to the south in order Visit to
to visit the site reported under the name of Tonguz-bāsh, ' the boar's head '. For nearly four miles Tonguz-
the track skirted an almost continuous belt of new cultivation, where fields had been sown in bāsh.
rotation for the last twenty years or so, but dwellings had only recently been erected. The canal
irrigating these fields was found farther on to traverse a steppe covered with low tamarisk-cones,
and to extend right down to the vicinity of the site, which was reached after 11 miles' march from
Shahīdlar. Within a quarter of a mile of the northern wall of the ruined ' town ' I noticed an